About the Trust

Our aim is the continuous improvement of services and facilities for patients, staff and visitors.

In order to meet our aims we channel our efforts into five guiding principles. These five principles underpin every aspect of our work both within the Trust and within the community as a whole.

In addition to our guiding principles, our mission statement is clear " Our Patients are at the Heart of Everything we do".

Our Guiding principles

The principles are:

Provide effective, responsive services of high quality

Ensure that services are integrated and co-ordinated

Ensure that the staff feel valued and to make the best use of their abilities

Use our resources efficiently

Make our services locally accessible as far as possible

The services provided by the Trust vary from site to site but will include the following:

Acute Medicine and Coronary Care

Acute Surgery and Intensive Care

Womens Services

Child Health

Care of the Elderly and Rehabilitation

Ear, Nose and Throat, Ophthalmology and Dental Services

Accident and Emergency and Minor Injuries

Musculoskeletal Directorate

Clinical Support Services including Pathology, Pharmacy and Radiology

How we fit into the NHS Structure

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust is part of the National Health Service (NHS). We are one of hundreds of NHS Trusts comprising the NHS. A full list of Trusts can be found by visiting the NHS Choices website.

The Trust is a major acute Trust serving the people of the Borough of Wigan. Innovative and forward thinking, the Trust is dedicated to providing the best possible healthcare for the local population of over 300,000.

The Trust is committed to designing services around the needs of patients and for patients to be cared for as close to their home as possible. Operating across 3 hospital sites, a state-of-the-art outpatients centre, a dedicated Eye Unit at the Wigan Health Centre and also working from offices at Buckingham Row in Wigan town centre, the Trust has 758 inpatient beds and invests over £220 million each year in a broad range of highly regarded general and specialist acute services.

Foundation Trusts are a new type of NHS Hospital Trust operated by local management, staff and members of the public, tailoring services to the needs of the local population. As a Foundation Trust we have been given much more financial and operational freedom, but we remain within the NHS and its performance inspection system. Foundation Trusts have come to represent the government's commitment to de-centralising the control of public services.

The NHS is funded by the taxpayer. This means it is accountable to Parliament. It is managed by the Department of Health - which is directly responsible to the Secretary of State for Health.